


Hackathon

by Tam_Tam



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26315578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tam_Tam/pseuds/Tam_Tam
Summary: Rhys and Vaughn are working as a team at a local college's hackathon. It's an overnight kind of event.
Relationships: Rhys/Vaughn (Borderlands)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18





	Hackathon

“We’re never gonna finish by judging,” Vaughn complained, staring down at his laptop. It seemed like no matter how many times he rewrote the function in front of him it ended up failing. 

“Why not take a break then?” Rhys asked, popping a piece of heavily caffeinated chocolate into his mouth. “Look at it with fresh eyes later, yknow?” 

“Oh, you mean like the break you’ve been taking for the last two hours? Pass me that coffee, by the way.” 

Rhys obliged, sliding his cup over to Vaughn. His friend was right, it had been a good bit since he’d looked at the project. But to be fair, it was getting awfully late, and they’d worked for about twelve hours straight. 

“Here, how about we switch off. I’ll work on it, and you can rest for a bit.” 

Vaughn seemed hesitant, but he eventually handed Rhys the laptop and leaned back into his chair, still nursing Rhys’s cream and sugar filled coffee. 

“Don’t know how you drink this stuff all day,” he mumbled, the warmth of the drink contributing to his building exhaustion. 

“What you like to drink tastes like dirt, Vaughn.” 

Vaughn yawned. “Not my fault you can’t handle bitter food,” he took another sip of Rhys’s drink and made a face. “This stuff isn’t going to be strong enough to keep me up much longer.” 

Rhys missed his comment, too absorbed in looking over Vaughn’s code. They’d worked on plenty of projects together over their first two years of college, making him pretty familiar with Vaughn’s coding style. Still, in his over exhausted brain he could barely follow what was going on, much less what was going wrong. 

About half an hour and several print statements later, Rhys turned around the laptop, thrilled to show Vaughn that he’d figured out the problem. 

“You remember that function you wrote that you said was like, really important?” 

“Yeah. Please tell me it’s not the one busted.” 

“It’s not! We forgot to call it.” 

Vaughn put his head directly down on the table without another word. “So stupid…” he rubbed his head. “How did we both miss that?” 

Rhys shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now. But it’s probably a sign that we should get to sleep. I think we’re in pretty decent shape with this fixed, now it’s just some edge case stuff, but we can do that tomorrow.” 

“Lazy people sleep at hackathons, Rhys.” 

“So do tired people. And those who like to sound coherent in front of the judges.” 

Vaughn contemplated this for a moment, then put down Rhys’s drink. “Fine. Are we sleeping on the chairs or the floor?”

“Chairs are softer...floor gives us more space. And we could use those shirts they gave us as pillows.” 

Vaughn slipped a hand into his bag and pulled out a t-shirt. “It is pretty soft. Floor, I guess.” 

Rhys looked around the room. “Looks like everyone else has spread out or gone back to their dorms, so I think we’re good to turn off the lights in here.” 

He walked over to the doorway and flipped the switch, letting just the dim light of the hallway creep into the room. As he closed the heavy wooden door even that disappeared, leaving him with just the light of Vaughn’s laptop to guide him. 

Vaughn was already on the floor, and had pulled off his sweatshirt to use in addition to the t-shirt to rest his head. The floor was a carpet covered in who knew what, probably years of CS student’s spilled tea, coffee, and ramen. Still, it wasn’t the worst hackathon school floor he’d ever slept on. The last school’s entire engineering hall was tile. 

Rhys crawled over to his side, taking his own shirt and folding it into a makeshift pillow. For a moment they lay quietly, waiting for sleep to take over, but Rhys broke the silence. 

“It’s too cold in here.” 

Vaughn rolled over to face him. “I told you to bring a jacket,” he said. 

“Yeah, but that doesn’t really help me much now. Can you come over here?” 

“What?” 

“I’ll be warmer with you next to me.” 

Vaugn felt himself blushing slightly and was suddenly very glad the room was so dark. “Seriously?” 

“Seriously.” 

Vaughn shifted himself and his sweatshirt close to Rhys. 

“That better?” 

Rhys stretched out an arm and put it around Vaughn. “Yeah, better.” 

Vaughn woke up with his back against Rhys’s chest and one of his friend’s arms still wrapped around him. His side hurt from laying on the uncomfortable floor, and he could see a trail of ants just a little closer to him than he was comfortable with. Not to mention the stain of unclear origin inches from his face. 

Despite it all, he’d never been so relaxed. Something about laying beside Rhys, tangled in his arms and against his body made nothing around him matter. 

Vaughn felt Rhys’s breathing, his heart beating softly, and for just a moment indulged himself in imagining his life like this every day. It would be so easy, just them in their little two person apartment. They could push their cheap, small beds together, or maybe even just squeeze into one. It would be more comfortable than here. Softer too, and warmer with cotton sheets and Rhys’s skin against his.

They could wake up together, maybe Vaughn would make breakfast for the both of them. He almost laughed at that. He already did, every time he ‘made too much on accident’. But he longed for Rhys to know it was more than that, and every little thing, like buying the fancier soap, or picking up Rhys’s favorite chips even though the flavor was weird, was a little act of love. 

Vaughn let out a soft sigh. To his surprise, it was enough to make Rhys shift around, curling a little closer around his body. 

Vaughn smiled and lazily looked down at his watch. 

“Shit,” he groaned. Judging was in 20 minutes. 

“Rhys,” he whispered first, not really wanting the other man to wake up. 

“Rhys,” he said again this time louder. “It’s time to get up.” 

“Mm, ten more minutes,” Rhys responded, half awake. 

“We don’t have ten more minutes, Rhys.” Vaughn untangled himself from Rhys’s arms, sad at the loss, but not willing to throw away a day’s worth of work. 

“Cmon, you can sleep when we get home.” 

Vaugn held out his hand to pull him up, and Rhys graciously accepted. Even once he was standing Vaughn held on for just another moment. 

“We should do these more often,” Rhys yawned, rubbing at his eyes. “They’re fun, right?” 

Vaughn only nodded. 

**Author's Note:**

> ceostrongfork on tumblr, ceo_strongfork on twitter :)


End file.
